Date: 07/10/2006
Source: Northern Cape Provincial Government
Title: Joemat-Pettersson: Women in Agriculture and Rural Development Launch
Speech by MEC Tina Joemat-Pettersson, MPL, at the occasion of the provincial launch of Women in Agriculture and Rural Development (WARD), Flamingo Casino, Kimberley
Honourable MECs Akharwaray and Selao
Speaker of Sol Plaatje Municipality Ms Thole Acting Director-General of Northern Cape Provincial Administration (NCPA) Ms Moera-Martin
Representatives of the financial sector and various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) Leadership of farmer unions
Managers and officials in government
Representatives of all women's groups
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Comrades and friends
I am extremely gratified to address this launch that crystallises a vision defined more than 50 years ago. It was a vision that urged women of all races to commit their diverse energies towards a battle for the attainment of socio-economic change.
As we commemorated 50 years of the historic Women's March of 9 August 1956, we acknowledged the immeasurable contribution to freedom and democracy by all women that descended on the Union Buildings on that day.
In reflecting on the historic milestone of 1956 and the achievements of our new and progressive democracy, we find ourselves pondering on the current national debate over economic justice and its inextricable link to women empowerment.
Economic justice is without doubt a key aspect of our developmental agenda.
Yes indeed, interventions in the second economy are laden with challenges of government having to address shortcomings such as lack of skills within those that find themselves at the periphery of this economy. Rural women constitute a significant share of those bearing the brunt of unemployment. They are the ones that carry the burden of poverty at proportions unknown to many a person.
Programme director,
We are indeed duty bound to give a voice to the bastions of Africa's agricultural heritage and the bastions of food security. Ours is to get them organised into a powerful, united and active force for revolutionary change within the province's land and agrarian landscape as well as in the country in general.
It is our responsibility to lead well by doing well as we attempt to extricate our womenfolk from that dead-end-alley of abject poverty.
We should proudly declare that central to our developmental agenda is the soul destroying social dilemma of our rural women that can best be remedied through the creation of a better life for all.
We are convinced that through the Women in Agriculture and Rural Development initiative, we shall be making a significant contribution towards ending the ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political divide among women in all spheres of life.
Ladies and gentleman,
Let us promote WARD as a multi-prong strategy that seeks to address the inequalities of society that have deeply scarred rural women. We need to accede to the fact that central to the historic march of 9 August 1956, was the question of the socio-economic empowerment of women that can best be addressed through women being mobilised to seize all economic opportunities presented to them.
I wish to urge all delegates present today, to respond with the same zest of the women that fought bitter battles against a devilish and suppressive apartheid regime. We need to remind ourselves of the fact that hearts ceased to beat with blood lost in those bitter battles, nourishing a future of new challenges in an age of hope.
This age of hope that had been attained through a struggle for freedom presents in its midst an entrepreneurial drive that allows for the tilling of the land, for a harvest of prosperity.
WARD serves to commit all of us towards forging and bringing about a vision of a truly democratic, non-racial, non-sexist, united and prosperous South Africa for all and sundry. It is a vision reflected in our endeavours of bringing about equality by creating opportunities to the ones worst affected by the ills of apartheid through the triple oppression effect.
Programme director,
Through WARD, we shall be laying a firm foundation for the empowerment of women living on the fringes of society. Those often marginalised when opportunities arise. They are the ones that have unwillingly found themselves carrying the curse of dependent minors.
We are steadfast in our belief that in order for this ill to vanish, mass mobilisation of women through the provision of information needs to be unleashed at groundbreaking speed. WARD is a direct information base for rural women to access information and network on how best to improve their lot.
Strong Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) development is central to this initiative. Goat co-operatives have been formed and female farmers are being prepared to be part of the commercialisation of goat projects with some being trained and assisted to form co-operatives that will produce and supply the Kalahari Kid Co-operation.
Programme director,
Rural women can learn how to utilise backyards for crop planting and organising themselves into co-operatives. Rural women are the best to mobilise in arresting the spectre of a decline in food production, because they are the real bastions of food security.
For Africa to attain its New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) agricultural ideals and to be able and capable of feeding itself and growing its economy that is mainly characterised by agriculture, women need to be empowered from all corners of the African continent.
Programme director,
What I indicated to representatives of the Southern African Agricultural Unions when they visited our shores in Pretoria earlier this year, was that it would be quite inhumane for us to allow for the emergence of a know-not class having emerged from an era of haves and have-nots. What disappointed me most was the flawed gender representation and women empowerment appearing to be a foreign debate to the attendees of a key forum of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Other member states in the region need to join us in addressing the plight of rural women because our pasts of colonialism and oppression are identical. Like South Africa, we ought to free information and allow rural women to share in the continent's wealth and in claiming their stake when the land is shared among those who work it.
Critical to our quest of empowering rural women would be our task of stepping up our efforts in bringing on board other stakeholders that would equally want to make a contribution through the availing of information, funds and resources. Committing rural women to the battlefront of our economy should be an economic scene visualised and acted upon by all of us.
The likes of Charlotte Maxeke, Helen Joseph, Francis Baard, Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa, and Ray Alexander have put before us a historic milestone well encapsulated in the constitution. Their call and our constitutional obligation is that of expanding our means of eliminating the pinpricks of the landless, property-less and powerless.
Those that live with little from the less that they have are indeed our rural mothers and sisters.
Programme director,
Having flagged the importance of WARD as a critical information vehicle for our mothers and sisters and mobilising them to seize opportunities presented to them by the Department of Agriculture and Land Reform, allow me to highlight how we have fared in the past financial year.
The Department had allocated in the previous financial year through the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) over R3,2 million for women driven projects such as:
* Eiland Women Project of Upington (crop production), tractors and implements R800 000,00
* 5J14 Hartswater Women's Project (crop production), upgrading of infrastructure and purchasing of implements R1,1 million
* Drieplotte, Ritchie (crop production), tractors and implements R700 000,00
In encouraging and increasing the participation of women in agriculture and land reform, we shall continue with our practice of prioritising on channelling our funds and resources towards women driven enterprises/projects.
I wish to assure all delegates here today, that from the preliminary allocation of over R91 million towards the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme over the next three financial years, projects constituted by women-only would receive over 30% of what is to be allocated each year. This is despite the fact that we do expect all other projects to be constituted by not less than 50% of women.
We will continue to be deliberately blunt in our agenda of ensuring that women take centre stage in our green revolution; our land and agrarian reform agenda. We extend the ownership boundaries within the sector for the attainment of our goal of ensuring that 30% of prime agricultural land is in the rightful hands of the African majority and Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) groupings by 2014.
Programme director
We shall pursue this agenda having acknowledged that rural women in the main are our subsistence and household food production base. It is also for this reason that women projects have received a huge chunk of our food security budgets over the last few years.
Programme director,
Government is committed towards the allocation of state land to women as well as allowing access to land through other programmes such as Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) with the intentions of creating a new breed of commercial female farmers. They are the ones that we shall continuously target for our high-impact projects such as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) related projects.
In conclusion programme director,
These efforts mirror our resourceful efforts in generating participation through profitable, competitive and sustainable agricultural enterprises, and building stable and safe rural communities. Our quest is that of cultivating countless commercial female farmers in our second decade of freedom.
On behalf of the provincial government and the Department of Agriculture, I wish to extend my best wishes to all women present here today and trust that they will choose the best candidates to lead them as WARD unleashes its voyage into the space of our rural masses.
Thank you, ke a leboga, baie dankie, enkosi, asante sana!
Malibongwe!
Issued by: Department of Agriculture, Northern Cape Provincial Government
7 October 2006
Source: Northern Cape Provincial Government
Title: Joemat-Pettersson: Women in Agriculture and Rural Development Launch
Speech by MEC Tina Joemat-Pettersson, MPL, at the occasion of the provincial launch of Women in Agriculture and Rural Development (WARD), Flamingo Casino, Kimberley
Honourable MECs Akharwaray and Selao
Speaker of Sol Plaatje Municipality Ms Thole Acting Director-General of Northern Cape Provincial Administration (NCPA) Ms Moera-Martin
Representatives of the financial sector and various non-governmental organisations (NGOs) Leadership of farmer unions
Managers and officials in government
Representatives of all women's groups
Distinguished guests
Ladies and gentlemen
Comrades and friends
I am extremely gratified to address this launch that crystallises a vision defined more than 50 years ago. It was a vision that urged women of all races to commit their diverse energies towards a battle for the attainment of socio-economic change.
As we commemorated 50 years of the historic Women's March of 9 August 1956, we acknowledged the immeasurable contribution to freedom and democracy by all women that descended on the Union Buildings on that day.
In reflecting on the historic milestone of 1956 and the achievements of our new and progressive democracy, we find ourselves pondering on the current national debate over economic justice and its inextricable link to women empowerment.
Economic justice is without doubt a key aspect of our developmental agenda.
Yes indeed, interventions in the second economy are laden with challenges of government having to address shortcomings such as lack of skills within those that find themselves at the periphery of this economy. Rural women constitute a significant share of those bearing the brunt of unemployment. They are the ones that carry the burden of poverty at proportions unknown to many a person.
Programme director,
We are indeed duty bound to give a voice to the bastions of Africa's agricultural heritage and the bastions of food security. Ours is to get them organised into a powerful, united and active force for revolutionary change within the province's land and agrarian landscape as well as in the country in general.
It is our responsibility to lead well by doing well as we attempt to extricate our womenfolk from that dead-end-alley of abject poverty.
We should proudly declare that central to our developmental agenda is the soul destroying social dilemma of our rural women that can best be remedied through the creation of a better life for all.
We are convinced that through the Women in Agriculture and Rural Development initiative, we shall be making a significant contribution towards ending the ethnic, linguistic, cultural, economic and political divide among women in all spheres of life.
Ladies and gentleman,
Let us promote WARD as a multi-prong strategy that seeks to address the inequalities of society that have deeply scarred rural women. We need to accede to the fact that central to the historic march of 9 August 1956, was the question of the socio-economic empowerment of women that can best be addressed through women being mobilised to seize all economic opportunities presented to them.
I wish to urge all delegates present today, to respond with the same zest of the women that fought bitter battles against a devilish and suppressive apartheid regime. We need to remind ourselves of the fact that hearts ceased to beat with blood lost in those bitter battles, nourishing a future of new challenges in an age of hope.
This age of hope that had been attained through a struggle for freedom presents in its midst an entrepreneurial drive that allows for the tilling of the land, for a harvest of prosperity.
WARD serves to commit all of us towards forging and bringing about a vision of a truly democratic, non-racial, non-sexist, united and prosperous South Africa for all and sundry. It is a vision reflected in our endeavours of bringing about equality by creating opportunities to the ones worst affected by the ills of apartheid through the triple oppression effect.
Programme director,
Through WARD, we shall be laying a firm foundation for the empowerment of women living on the fringes of society. Those often marginalised when opportunities arise. They are the ones that have unwillingly found themselves carrying the curse of dependent minors.
We are steadfast in our belief that in order for this ill to vanish, mass mobilisation of women through the provision of information needs to be unleashed at groundbreaking speed. WARD is a direct information base for rural women to access information and network on how best to improve their lot.
Strong Small, Medium and Micro Enterprise (SMME) development is central to this initiative. Goat co-operatives have been formed and female farmers are being prepared to be part of the commercialisation of goat projects with some being trained and assisted to form co-operatives that will produce and supply the Kalahari Kid Co-operation.
Programme director,
Rural women can learn how to utilise backyards for crop planting and organising themselves into co-operatives. Rural women are the best to mobilise in arresting the spectre of a decline in food production, because they are the real bastions of food security.
For Africa to attain its New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) agricultural ideals and to be able and capable of feeding itself and growing its economy that is mainly characterised by agriculture, women need to be empowered from all corners of the African continent.
Programme director,
What I indicated to representatives of the Southern African Agricultural Unions when they visited our shores in Pretoria earlier this year, was that it would be quite inhumane for us to allow for the emergence of a know-not class having emerged from an era of haves and have-nots. What disappointed me most was the flawed gender representation and women empowerment appearing to be a foreign debate to the attendees of a key forum of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
Other member states in the region need to join us in addressing the plight of rural women because our pasts of colonialism and oppression are identical. Like South Africa, we ought to free information and allow rural women to share in the continent's wealth and in claiming their stake when the land is shared among those who work it.
Critical to our quest of empowering rural women would be our task of stepping up our efforts in bringing on board other stakeholders that would equally want to make a contribution through the availing of information, funds and resources. Committing rural women to the battlefront of our economy should be an economic scene visualised and acted upon by all of us.
The likes of Charlotte Maxeke, Helen Joseph, Francis Baard, Lilian Ngoyi, Rahima Moosa, and Ray Alexander have put before us a historic milestone well encapsulated in the constitution. Their call and our constitutional obligation is that of expanding our means of eliminating the pinpricks of the landless, property-less and powerless.
Those that live with little from the less that they have are indeed our rural mothers and sisters.
Programme director,
Having flagged the importance of WARD as a critical information vehicle for our mothers and sisters and mobilising them to seize opportunities presented to them by the Department of Agriculture and Land Reform, allow me to highlight how we have fared in the past financial year.
The Department had allocated in the previous financial year through the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme (CASP) over R3,2 million for women driven projects such as:
* Eiland Women Project of Upington (crop production), tractors and implements R800 000,00
* 5J14 Hartswater Women's Project (crop production), upgrading of infrastructure and purchasing of implements R1,1 million
* Drieplotte, Ritchie (crop production), tractors and implements R700 000,00
In encouraging and increasing the participation of women in agriculture and land reform, we shall continue with our practice of prioritising on channelling our funds and resources towards women driven enterprises/projects.
I wish to assure all delegates here today, that from the preliminary allocation of over R91 million towards the Comprehensive Agricultural Support Programme over the next three financial years, projects constituted by women-only would receive over 30% of what is to be allocated each year. This is despite the fact that we do expect all other projects to be constituted by not less than 50% of women.
We will continue to be deliberately blunt in our agenda of ensuring that women take centre stage in our green revolution; our land and agrarian reform agenda. We extend the ownership boundaries within the sector for the attainment of our goal of ensuring that 30% of prime agricultural land is in the rightful hands of the African majority and Broad Based Black Economic Empowerment (BBBEE) groupings by 2014.
Programme director
We shall pursue this agenda having acknowledged that rural women in the main are our subsistence and household food production base. It is also for this reason that women projects have received a huge chunk of our food security budgets over the last few years.
Programme director,
Government is committed towards the allocation of state land to women as well as allowing access to land through other programmes such as Land Redistribution for Agricultural Development (LRAD) with the intentions of creating a new breed of commercial female farmers. They are the ones that we shall continuously target for our high-impact projects such as the Accelerated and Shared Growth Initiative for South Africa (AsgiSA) related projects.
In conclusion programme director,
These efforts mirror our resourceful efforts in generating participation through profitable, competitive and sustainable agricultural enterprises, and building stable and safe rural communities. Our quest is that of cultivating countless commercial female farmers in our second decade of freedom.
On behalf of the provincial government and the Department of Agriculture, I wish to extend my best wishes to all women present here today and trust that they will choose the best candidates to lead them as WARD unleashes its voyage into the space of our rural masses.
Thank you, ke a leboga, baie dankie, enkosi, asante sana!
Malibongwe!
Issued by: Department of Agriculture, Northern Cape Provincial Government
7 October 2006
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